Open Discussion on next steps for BOT

Dear all!

We had a email discussion on the future activities related to the BOT ontology which we would like to share and ask you to provide additionally more comments on the topic.

Agreements found (to be discussed) are:


-          It should be not advised to change BOT ontology and the current status

-          The documentation and provision of examples for reuse should be stipulated

o   Maxime suggest a final report similar to LINK<https://github.com/w3c-lbd-cg/lbd/tree/gh-pages/UseCasesAndRequirements> and namespace from W3C

-          The aim of BOT is to provide the basic layer/ building block of every building related ontology in the future

Please find the previous discussion below for reference

Best,

Georg

P.S.: I also see some documentation requirements in the meeting minutes from 22/05/2018 which would fit well with the documentation efforts

--
M.Sc. Georg Ferdinand Schneider
Technical Building System Solutions
Department Energy Efficiency and Indoor Climate

Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP, Nürnberg Branch
Fürther Straße 250 - Auf AEG Bau 16 | 90429 Nürnberg | Germany

Phone: +49 911 56854-9145 | Fax: +49 911 56854-9121
georg.schneider@ibp.fraunhofer.de<mailto:georg.schneider@ibp.fraunhofer.de>
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http://www.ibp.fraunhofer.de<http://www.ibp.fraunhofer.de/>



Von: Maxime Lefrançois [mailto:maxime.lefrancois@emse.fr]
Gesendet: Montag, 14. Mai 2018 09:26
An: Pieter Pauwels
Cc: Schneider, Georg; Mads Holten Rasmussen (MHRA)
Betreff: Re: Future of BOT

Dear all,

picking up the discussion a bit late, sorry.

I also think BOT shouldn't be changed except maybe to improve definitions and add examples.

from the W3C LBD-CG point of view, what we can do next is work on a Community Group Final Report (using the same template as the one for use cases and requirements), and then ask our contact at the W3C (Felix of François ?) to publish the ontology and the report under the https://w3.org/ns/bot/<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fw3.org%2Fns%2Fbot%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C3bc3630d40614861657508d5bc0e0e43%7C89f0873991c047aea732291b5df7a94e%7C0%7C0%7C636621690956547705&sdata=Qdy1k7vQI2vhjlxzdbptkuklYsFFAPMZcFOBRyqdNXw%3D&reserved=0>  namespace.

see https://github.com/w3c-lbd-cg/lbd/tree/gh-pages/UseCasesAndRequirements<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fw3c-lbd-cg%2Flbd%2Ftree%2Fgh-pages%2FUseCasesAndRequirements&data=02%7C01%7C%7C3bc3630d40614861657508d5bc0e0e43%7C89f0873991c047aea732291b5df7a94e%7C0%7C0%7C636621690956547705&sdata=JPxbKsIVP91Fen8JRZERI8BaZF2XWJqSG7JBs7wcMZI%3D&reserved=0>

That should strengthen the importance of the ontology, and will help to prove we are ready to move to a Working Group.

That document can be structured a bit like the one for SSN:

Introduction
Axiomatization
 - Namespaces
 - Overview of Classes and Properties
 - bot:Zone
 - bot:Space
 - ...
Complete Examples
...

In the Complete Examples section, I would really like to see the figures Mads included in its presentation last year to illustrate the different concepts.

I can bootstrap the writing of the document, and we could very well plan to have it ready by LDAC so as to annouce it.

Last thing: these conversations should really be sent directly to the public mailing list of the group, to gather feedback from others, and show we're active ..

Best.
Maxime

Le mar. 8 mai 2018 à 12:16, Pieter Pauwels <pipauwel.Pauwels@ugent.be<mailto:pipauwel.Pauwels@ugent.be>> a écrit :

Hi Georg!

Great! Indeed! Many strong agreements from my end. I do think that this should be the ambition for BOT. I would really like to see SAREF and BRICK using it as a reference point, including it in their ontologies (imports). Anyway, to spread the news and describe the use of BOT, those meetings are likely best. Well, we are doing quite well, I think, and should basically keep it up and stronger?

Pieter



________________________________
Van: Schneider, Georg <georg.schneider@ibp.fraunhofer.de<mailto:georg.schneider@ibp.fraunhofer.de>>
Verzonden: dinsdag 8 mei 2018 12:00
Aan: Pieter Pauwels; Mads Holten Rasmussen (MHRA); Maxime Lefrançois
Onderwerp: AW: Future of BOT

Hey ya!

Thanks for quick answers!

Just to point out: I do not ask to change BOT.

My question and regard is more in the direction: What can we do to foster the spreading and reuse of BOT to have it really as a basic layer/ building block of every building related ontology in the future. I would argue it has the potential to do so. (We might ask is this is the intention of BOT)

On the specific discussion on Zone/Space etc. The terms Zone/Space are used ambiguosly in the buildings domain (see Examples of Pieter, + many more). I agree that it should be up to us then to explicitly define it and also provide examples how to use it. Again the motivation for me doing this is to foster reuse of BOT in domain ontologies. So regarding the comment by Mads: Indeed bot:Zone can be used precise in your applications and queries. But can other people do so as well?

I agree with Pieter that it is worthwhile demanding this input from domain ontolog developers and gather and discuss. If at any point a conclusion is drawn that changes or additions need to be made then may be it makes sense to revise BOT. However, my feeling is that its more about acutally explaining and describing how to use BOT.

Best

Georg


Von: Pieter Pauwels [mailto:pipauwel.Pauwels@UGent.be<mailto:pipauwel.Pauwels@UGent.be>]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 8. Mai 2018 11:41
An: Mads Holten Rasmussen (MHRA); Schneider, Georg; Maxime Lefrançois
Betreff: Re: Future of BOT


Hi guys,



Although I am not in favor of directly changing BOT, I would still really do these evaluations and keep such kinds of discussions now that use cases and examples do emerge. I briefly saw the BRICK interpretations pass by and they likely make sense to some extent. We should keep taking these opinions into account, yet not taking them all randomly on board. It might be good to have a full BRICK presentation in one of the W3C meetings (but yeah, these are increasingly rare at the moment, unfortunately - mea culpa).



I am also looking into using BOT (and also SOSA). What I find odd about the Zone, is that it can be anything (Building, Site, Space, whichever), which then makes very diverse use possible. For now, it works pretty fine, but it requires some interpretation which we are hopefully doing good enough. The same applies to SOSA. Some terms are really generic (e.g. a "Platform" as any potential thing that can host anything that can involves Sensing - that is very broad), making direct explicit and specific use somewhat difficult (would like to use specific semantics). But overall, I think there are many good things in both.



About BRICK and BOT and Zone and Space, I think a more difficult question relates to the interpretation of 'Space'. We randomly associate it to a Revit interpretation, which is like a room or area enclosed by walls (usually). I think many other people see 'Space' in a much broader sense (potentially also the Brick people). In such a case, they might think that a Space can have Zones. Now I definitely don't want to remotely suggest that we should do anything else than what we do now (namely Zones containing Spaces), but some people might actually feel that confusion. So, we should have clear definitions at least (which we probably have) ​and re-explain them, again and again.



I also still think we don't need "Storey". A storey is just another potential way of grouping Spaces. A Zone should be able to capture that concept, in my impression.



Other than that, I very much like the BOT as it is now ;) AND the SPARQL-visualizer.



kind regards,

Pieter



________________________________
Van: Mads Holten Rasmussen (MHRA) <mhra@niras.dk<mailto:mhra@niras.dk>>
Verzonden: dinsdag 8 mei 2018 10:59
Aan: Schneider, Georg; Pieter Pauwels; Maxime Lefrançois
Onderwerp: RE: Future of BOT

I don’t think we should make any changes. At least not any time soon.

Regarding bot:Zone I have recently been using it to group spaces of the Duplex house into apartments using the following query:

INSERT {
?zoneURI a ex:Appartment ;
                              rdfs:label ?enLabel , ?daLabel ;
                              bot:containsZone ?space .
}
WHERE {
               # Get space number
               ?space a bot:Space ;
               props:identityDataNumber/seas:evaluation [
                              a opm:CurrentState ;
                              schema:value ?mark ]

               # Extract first letter
               BIND(substr(str(?mark),1,1) AS ?letter)

               # Build english and danish label from letter
               BIND(STRLANG(CONCAT("Appartment ", ?letter), "en") AS ?enLabel)
               BIND(STRLANG(CONCAT("Lejlighed ", ?letter), "da") AS ?daLabel)

               # Build URI from letter
               BIND(URI(CONCAT(NAMESPACE(?space), "zone_", ?letter)) AS ?zoneURI)
}

I have also used zones to illustrate how a contractor can group spaces into delivery zones. All elements contained in a space contained in the delivery zone will hence belong to the delivery zone, which is quite convenient.

I don’t agree that zones are used differently in building sciences. How is it used differently?

Kind regards

Mads Holten Rasmussen

From: Schneider, Georg [mailto:georg.schneider@ibp.fraunhofer.de<mailto:georg.schneider@ibp.fraunhofer.de>]
Sent: 8. maj 2018 10:47
To: Pieter Pauwels (Univ. Gent); Mads Holten Rasmussen (MHRA); Maxime Lefrançois
Subject: Future of BOT

Dear all!

I was wondering if there is any activity or plans for improving and further development of BOT?

I am asking this as I joined a discussion of the BRICK development team (https://github.com/BuildSysUniformMetadata/Brick/issues/37<https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2FBuildSysUniformMetadata%2FBrick%2Fissues%2F37&data=02%7C01%7C%7C0798fecf0026413a862908d5b4c0cc89%7C89f0873991c047aea732291b5df7a94e%7C0%7C0%7C636613662521727314&sdata=GW94e4etR8JHBPwyxZXF6fQFh3Ynbj1WgSktZbzgyZo%3D&reserved=0>) which are looking into BOT and investigate possibilities for reuse.

I take away point from the discussions and also on the previous work on alignments is that the general concept of bot:Zone and bot:Element is appreciated. There is a demand for examples and use cases for the use of BOT. Critics are issued to the use of “Zone” in bot:Zone as this term is used in building sciences differently.

Best

Georg